Wednesday, May 1, 2013

AT&T makes its Optimus G Pro official, $199 on contract starting May 10

AT&T Optimus G Pro

AT&T this morning officially announced the LG Optimus G Pro. It'll be available starting March 10 for $199 on contract. Preorders kick off May 3 online.

We're no stranger to the Optimus G Pro, having enjoyed the Korean version for a couple months now. It's surprisingly svelte for a 5.5-inch device, and the 1080p IPS display is downright gorgeous. It's plenty snappy, too, with a Snapdragon 600 processor cranking along at 1.7 GHz.

More: AT&T

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/tKToKQnHW04/story01.htm

kansas ohio state wrestlemania results womens final four josh hutcherson google april fools office space shell houston open

King Boxer, Master of the Flying Guillotine and Other Awesome ...

by Raymond Horwitz
Movie-review excerpts originally by Dr. Craig D. Reid
Still image of Sonny Chiba from The Street Fighter movie trailer by New Line Cinema
? Today

King Boxer, Master of the Flying Guillotine and Other Awesome 1970s Martial Arts Movie Trailers!

With the summer blockbuster season just around the corner and everyone?s bandwidth being eaten alive by trailers, previews, excerpts, clips and parodies thereof for a long list of science-fiction and superhero action-adventure movies, we at BlackBeltMag.com thought it might be fun to take a look in the ?waaaaay back? machine when studios ? especially smaller ones ? put out a trailer that was shown before feature presentations at the local drive-in.

And, of course, we specialize in ? you guessed it! ? martial arts here at BlackBeltMag.com. So we were stoked to stumble upon a collection of awesome trailers for four martial arts movies assembled by a fellow martial arts fan and YouTube user.* The films in his trailers collection include:

  • Master of the Flying Guillotine
  • The Street Fighter (featuring the legendary Sonny Chiba)
  • King Boxer (also known as Five Fingers of Death)
  • Fist of Fury (also known as The Chinese Connection)

*Please note this is a third-party collection of movie trailers and, as such, it may disappear at any time.

YOUTUBE TRAILER COLLECTION: MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s
Master of the Flying Guillotine | The Street Fighter | King Boxer | Fist of Fury

BRUCE LEE? is a registered trademark of Bruce Lee Enterprises, LLC. The Bruce Lee name, image, likeness and all related indicia are intellectual property of Bruce Lee Enterprises, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Visit brucelee.com for more information.


You think these guys are tough? Learn about toughness
that may be altering world events in this FREE download!
How Chuck Norris Films Seem to Bend the Course of History


To contextualize the importance of the four film trailers presented, we fortunately have access to one of the world?s foremost authorities on the subject of martial arts movies: Dr. Craig D. Reid, author of the epic 288-page full-color reference book, The Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Movies of the 1970s: 500+ Films Loaded With Action, Weapons and Warriors ? which features in-depth write-ups for each of the martial arts movies featured in the above trailer collection ? and more than 496 more martial arts movies, ranging from the world-famous to the amazingly obscure.

The following are adapted (and often condensed) excerpts from Dr. Reid?s Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Movies of the 1970s write-ups for the aforementioned films ? Master of the Flying Guillotine, The Street Fighter, King Boxer, and Fist of Fury ? featured in the trailer collection.

MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s
Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)

Master of the Flying Guillotine, directed by Jimmy Wong Yu, notably has a large cast of martial arts superstars. Jimmy Wong Yu was a martial director?s martial artist. In several of his directed films, there is a large cast of kung fu actors prominently featured, and they all do different kinds of martial arts. Wong Yu gave the actors in Master of the Flying Guillotine the opportunity to flaunt their skills and show audiences the diversity and novelty of their martial ways.

Take the beginning of Master of the Flying Guillotine, for example: It jumps off with 12 fights that run for 12 minutes and features 18 different styles of martial arts. I also want to point out that none of the fights feature Wong Yu, which clearly demonstrates that a Jimmy Wong Yu movie is not all about him.

In this film, when the blind anti-Ming assassin Fung Sheng Wu Chi (Jin Gang) hears that a one-armed fighter killed his two disciples, he leaves his mountain retreat and vows to avenge his students. Shaving his head and disguising himself as a lama Buddhist monk, Fung arms himself with the deadly and scary flying guillotine. He vows to kill every one-armed fighter he meets.

This movie has the best cinematic musical shtick for a villain, one that?s foreboding and dangerous-sounding. It?s a short piece called Super 16 by the band Neu. It should rank right up there with Darth Vader?s theme from Star Wars.

MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s
The Street Fighter (1974)

The neat thing about watching Japanese karate films after watching a ton of Chinese kung fu films is that for once the Japanese are the good guys. So instead of trying to kill the Chinese or destroy their martial arts schools, they are destroying the evil Yakuza.

Enter Sonny Chiba, who gave Japanese karate films a different kind of fist of fury. Sonny Chiba brought Japanese karate center stage by sacrificing flair and artistry for more violence and brutality in the form of anti-hero Tsurugi Takuma the street fighter, aka Terry Tsurugi in the English dub.

In this first installment of the Street Fighter trilogy, the movie opens with Tsurugi breaking karate killer Tateki Shikenbaru, aka Junjoe (Masashi Ishibashi), out of prison. However, because Tateki?s brother and sister can?t completely pay for his services, Tsurugi launches one of the siblings out a four-story window. He sells the other sib as a sex slave to the inscrutable Enter the Dragon ?Han? look-alike Rakuda Zhang.


Go behind the scenes of Bruce Lee?s final martial arts epic in this FREE download!
Bruce Lee Movies: The Making of Enter the Dragon


When The Street Fighter hit the American shores, kung fu film fans assumed Sonny Chiba would be a Japanese Bruce Lee. From the get-go, it was evident Sonny Chiba?s character was not like Lee, such as when Tsurugi breaks Tateki out of prison or when Tsurugi hissingly grunts using heavy sanchin-style breathing (to strengthen ki) to subdue Tateki. So even though Sonny Chiba?s performance was filled with over-the-top, perhaps Lee-inspired facial grimaces, Sonny Chiba was much more demonstrative than Lee. Certainly his sanchin and shorinji kenpo-inspired ultra-contorted finger and fist postures kept things from even remotely resembling a Lee film.

But what really cemented this film?s cult status was its X rating, for extreme violence ? which included a castration, a violent layrnx removal and a head collapsing under a hammerfist.

MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s
King Boxer (also known as Five Fingers of Death)

In King Boxer, Chao Chi-hao (Lo Lieh) is sent to learn kung fu from Shen Chin-pei (Fang Mian) by his injured master, Sung Wu-yang (Gu Wen-zong). Sung hopes that Shen can enter an upcoming martial arts tournament and defeat the local martial arts school run by the malicious Ming Dung-shen (Tien Fung), who also hires martial artist thugs like Japanese samurai mercenaries and the horrific headbutter Chen Lung (Kim Kee-joo) to do his evil deeds whenever he needs one done.

Upon Chao?s arrival at Shen?s school, Shen?s star pupil shows his superiority by beating up Chao, which just makes Chao train harder. When Chen begins to butt heads with Shen and his students, Chao sticks his head into the mix and defends the honor of the school. Moved by Chao?s bravery, Master Sung chooses Chao to learn his most prized secret kung fu skill, the Iron Palm. This makes Han Lung jealous, causing him to conspire with the rival school headed by Ming, to break Chao?s hands and spirit. As Chao goes into seclusion, heals and then learns the Iron Palm in preparation for the martial arts tournament, Shen is killed by Ming?s minions.

Watching King Boxer back in the early ?70s, I remember often hearing ?brother? and ?sister? and then seeing those two characters fall in love and hug in slow motion, not knowing these are terms used to identify kung fu school relationships rather than personal ones. Then there was the moral lesson that kung fu should be used for righteous purposes and not for hurting, which is the sort of message imparted in David Carradine?s TV show Kung Fu. Most of us also never realized how much animosity and distrust there was between the Chinese and Japanese, but that message was underlined when Bruce Lee?s Fist of Fury came to town. (Note: There were a lot of Chinese films that carried an anti-Japanese message, but King Boxer and Fist of Fury were the first two to bring the message stateside via film).

MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s
Fist of Fury (also known as The Chinese Connection)

Read Dr. Reid?s full review of Fist of Fury here!


Be sure to subscribe to Black Belt magazine?s YouTube channel
for instant access to 400+ FREE martial arts videos!

Permalink: http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/martial-arts-entertainment/martial-art-movies/king-boxer-master-of-the-flying-guillotine-and-other-awesome-1970s-martial-arts-movie-trailers/

Source: http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/martial-arts-entertainment/martial-art-movies/king-boxer-master-of-the-flying-guillotine-and-other-awesome-1970s-martial-arts-movie-trailers/

the artist sacha baron cohen oscars the old curiosity shop jane russell meryl streep martin scorsese sacha baron cohen

Obama administration simplifies health care form

FILE - This April 10, 2013 file photo shows Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner speaking during a news conference at the Health and Humans Services (HHS) Department in Washington, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, to discuss the Health Department's fiscal 2014 budget. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

FILE - This April 10, 2013 file photo shows Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner speaking during a news conference at the Health and Humans Services (HHS) Department in Washington, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, to discuss the Health Department's fiscal 2014 budget. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

(AP) ? The first draft was as mind-numbing as a tax form. Tuesday the Obama administration unveiled simplified application forms for health insurance benefits under the federal health care overhaul.

The biggest change: a five-page short form that single people can fill out. That total includes a cover page with instructions, and an extra page to fill out if you want to designate someone to help you through the process.

But the application form for families still runs to 12 pages, although most households will not have to fill out each and every page. Finally, there's also a five-page form for households that do not want to apply for financial assistance with their premiums.

The paperwork takes on added importance because Americans remain confused about what President Barack Obama's health care overhaul will mean for them. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Tuesday found that 4 in 10 are unaware it's the law of the land. Some think it's been repealed by Congress, but in fact, it's still on track.

Consumers will start getting familiar with the new health insurance applications less than six months from now, on Oct. 1, when new insurance markets open in every state. Most people with job-based benefits will not have to bother with the new applications, only the uninsured.

Under the law, middle-class people who don't get coverage through their jobs will be able to purchase private insurance. Most will be able to get tax credits, based on their incomes, to make their premiums more affordable. Low-income uninsured people will be steered to government programs like Medicaid.

Benefits begin Jan. 1, and nearly 30 million uninsured Americans are eventually expected to get coverage.

While the old forms were widely panned, the new forms were seen as an improvement. Still, consumers must provide a snapshot of their finances to see if they qualify for help. That potentially includes multiple sources of income, from alimony, to tips, to regular paychecks.

"Given the amount of information necessary to determine eligibility, it's hard to see how the forms could be any shorter," said Robert Laszewski, a former insurance executive turned industry consultant.

Activist Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, is an administration ally who had openly criticized the first draft of the forms, worrying that consumers would get discouraged just trying to fill them out. He called the changes "very positive."

"There has got to be a balance to between getting adequate (financial) information to make sure everybody gets the help they're entitled to under the law, while at the same time trying to keep the process consumer-friendly," said Pollack.

Although the new forms are shorter, the administration wasn't able to get rid of all the complexity. Individuals will have to gather tax returns, pay stubs and other financial records before filling out the application.

Administration officials expect most consumers to apply online through the new insurance marketplaces in each state. A single application process will serve to route consumers to either private plans or the Medicaid program. Identification, citizenship and immigration status, as well as income details, are supposed to be verified in close to real time through a federal "data hub" that will involve pinging Social Security, Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service.

Currently, applying for health insurance individually entails filling out a lengthy questionnaire about your health. Under Obama's overhaul, insurers will no longer be able to turn away the sick, or charge them more. The health care questions will disappear, but they'll be replaced by questions about your income. Consumers who underestimate their incomes could be in for an unwelcome surprise later on in the form of smaller tax refunds.

"Consumers will have a simple-easy to understand way to apply for health coverage later this year," said Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, also overseeing the rollout of the health care law. She said the application is "significantly shorter than industry standards."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-04-30-Health%20Overhaul-Applying%20for%20Benefits/id-b0310d8bb7e44441baf77315bef04d79

breaking dawn part 2 breaking dawn part 2 Jennifer Lacy Honey Baked Ham hostess israel AMA